Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Advantage of Experience


As I read Cicero's "De Inventione" I was impressed to see how much the concepts which Cicero wrote about seemed to be a part of him now. As I read it was clear to see that he had transformed from the student merely running through the concepts into the teacher who had experience using them. I knew that Cicero understood the concepts in "De Oratore" but one can see the evident mastery in the latter work, "De Inventione."

You can see this in the way he is instructing the people listening. He also calls upon different experiences which he has had over the course of his career. I would have to say the main difference between Cicero's "De Oratore" and "De Inventione" is the life time of experience which Cicero now can draw upon. I like how Hailee compared there two speeches to a missionary's fair-well and  homecoming talks. I think that's a really relateable example for most of us. Truly Cicero has gained a mastery of the things which he wrote about in his first speech. 

I had a similar experience lately when I went to the Jan's Sport winter gala in Park City. There was man giving a speech and he was not being well received. I knew the concepts behind oration, but I had only considered them conceptually. As I analyzed his speech I theorized why his speech wasn't working. In that moment I realized that my understanding had changed from conceptual to operational.  This change is the fundamental difference between Cicero's two works. 


2 comments:

  1. That is pretty cool that you had that opportunity to apply what we are learning and analyze the guy's speech. I feel like most of the time when people have a problem being convincing it is either because they didn't correctly figure out their audience or they don't know what they are talking about and it shows. Cicero managed to address both these problems in his writing.

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  2. Your post emphasizes to me the importance of practice. If the speaker at the Winter Gala had more experience and more practice, he would have had a better mastery of the whole situation, like Cicero does in De oratore. I have some job interviews coming up, and I know that practicing will be a great way to prepare!

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